


When I Can't Fix All My Demons...

by Who_Watches_the_Watchman



Series: You're the One I Believe In [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Ed's a precious angel, I don't like that smile, I want to believe the best of you, Let me be your everything, M/M, Metaphors, Roy dreams sometimes, Too long glances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Watches_the_Watchman/pseuds/Who_Watches_the_Watchman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want to believe the best of you,” Ed’s voice is tight and it seems to be hurting his throat but he can’t stop now; he’s leapt the safety rails and now he’s falling–<br/>Or flying–</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Can't Fix All My Demons...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Occhiolysm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Occhiolysm/gifts).



> Man, I get Roy. So much. It's kind of painful.

He fights with his smile.

Ed’s not sure how he never noticed it before. He’s known Roy for as long–

No. That’s not right.

He’s known General Mustang for a decade now. They’d met when he was twelve and he’s returned after exploring Creta and Drachma and Xing and he’s twenty-two now.

He’s been working in the office for only a month when the thought first hits him.

_He fights with his smile._

General Mustang fights with his smile. He’s learned how to take an expression that is normally so warm and pleasant, even welcoming and turn it into warfare. It’s not just in the curve of his lips; it’s in the gleam in his eyes when General Hakuro walks into his office and begins chatting with his staff, too casually to be up to any good.

“General,” Roy says when he comes back to the office from a meeting with the Fuhrer and finds him there, leaning across Fuery’s desk and talking to the young Communications expert.

Hakuro turns and Roy smiles.

Maybe Hakuro doesn’t notice anything but Ed’s aware of the level of tension rising among the others. They clearly know about this smile and Ed feels his stomach clench.

“Is there something you need, General?” Roy asks as if he really wants to know.

Hakuro’s eyes flick to Fuery, then to Falman, to Breda, to Havoc, to Hawkeye and finally, to him. He smiles back at Roy but it’s nothing to Roy’s. If this was a battle, Ed knows which side would be winning. “Not at all, General. Your staff has been incredibly helpful.” He nods to Roy then walks past him and out the door, closing it pointedly behind him.

There’s a moment of silence before Roy turns to Hawkeye. “Anything to report, Major?” He asks.

Hawkeye salutes smartly. “Just a bit of pointless paperwork. It’s not going to do itself, sir.”

Roy’s eyes narrow as if he doesn’t believe Hawkeye but the smile is gone. It’s been replaced by an overly exaggerated grimace. “Then I shall get right on it, Major,” he says and disappears into his office.

Ed says nothing more about the incident, gets back to his work instead and the others do the same.

Ed works late that night. He’s aware that the others leave around five, all except for Hawkeye who doesn’t leave until seven with a quiet, “Get some rest, Edward,” before leaving him alone in the outer office.

He puts his pen down, sets that last drying piece of paperwork aside, sits back in his chair, props his feet up on the desk and waits.

Roy doesn’t emerge for another half-hour and he seems surprised to see Ed still there. “I thought you’d have gone home hours ago,” he says.

“I don’t like it.” Ed’s been waiting all day to say it and the words come out sharp and flat.

Roy looks puzzled. “What don’t you like, Edward?”

“That smile.”

Roy looks even more confused. “I’m not smiling.”

“I meant when you looked at General Hakuro.”

Ah, Roy knows what he means. His eyes flick away, focus on the wall then sweep back to him and when he does, Ed’s stomach does that uncomfortable roll-spin-dive that’s really, really unpleasant. Or completely wonderful. He’s not sure which.

“Edward, I don’t know how to be anything other than myself.”

They’ve played this game before. They’ve been playing it since he came back to the military. The causal use of each other’s given name, the too long glances, the silences that say more than a thousand words, the way that insults and insubordination have given way to respect and quiet complements when there’s no one else around to call them out on it.

“I know.”

“I was taught to use any weakness that I could see,” Roy’s voice is lower, softer somehow.

“I know.”

Roy studies him for a second then starts for the door. “Then don’t ask me to be less than what I am.”

The words won’t stay in his mind. They rip their way out, past the barrier of his tongue, ignore the way his teeth clench to prevent them escaping and he asks, “Will you do that to me?”

Roy stops dead. His whole body goes still as if frozen, suspended in time.

“Am I just another tool to the top, to be beaten and discarded the second that I go against you?” And Ed thinks, _I need to ask, Roy. I need to know the answer._

Roy turns slowly toward him but Ed can’t stop now. “It’s just–I’ve seen the way you treat Gracia and Elysia and your team and I’ve seen the way you treat your enemies but you don’t treat me like either of those groups. I’m not a friend, I’m not an enemy; I’m a subordinate but you don’t treat me the way you do the others. They don’t get too long glances and tentative touches. They get a part of you but nobody gets all of you and I need to know Roy, how long can you treat people like this until all of us are just another tool? Another lever? Useful as long as we work but discarded when we’re don’t anymore?”

“Edward,” Roy says, his voice low and husky.

“I want to believe the best of you,” Ed’s voice is tight and it seems to be hurting his throat but he can’t stop now; he’s leapt the safety rails and now he’s falling–

Or flying–

“I keep thinking about that day under Central; about you and Envy and I think, those weren’t the actions of a man who doesn’t care; that was the vengeance of someone who cares too much.”

“Edward,” Roy says again, not as if he wants to staunch the flood but as if he wants to calm the waters.

“I love you,” Ed says, and he swallows hard. “I love you, Roy and I don’t know if I can stand being nothing more than a tool to you because love doesn’t mean hurting the person you love. Not for me. It means giving your all, it means being willing to sacrifice your blood and skin for them.” He holds out his restored arm and places his other hand on the bicep before running down the length of his sleeve to his wrist and back up again. “I gave this up for Al. I would have given anything and there are worse things than a part of your body. I don’t think that we can be anything if you’re not willing to give me everything. Because that’s what I’ll give you, Roy. I don’t half-ass anything and I don’t–don’t think–”

Roy crosses the space between them and takes Ed’s outstretched arm and pulls him to his feet. Then he takes Ed’s face and leans down until their foreheads touch.

Ed’s voice breaks off and he swallows.

Roy closes his eyes and takes a deep, deep breath as if he’s about to dive into the ocean and never resurface and Ed thinks, _I’ll never stop wanting this. This man is half my heart and all my soul and I don’t think I can live without him._

_I don’t think I can live with him._

“Do you know how it feels when your foot falls asleep because you’ve been sitting on it?” Roy asks and Ed’s thrown because that doesn’t make sense, and what does it have to do with them–

“Do you know that tingling feeling when the blood starts flowing again, and how it’s not quite pain but it’s so intense after feeling nothing at all that you wish it wasn’t attached to you until it was used to feeling again?” Roy opens his eyes, looks into Edward’s. “That’s how it’s felt ever since you came back to Central.”

Ed stares into his eyes and realizes that they are so very Xingian, so very foreign that they seem impossible to be looking out of such a familiar face.

If Roy thinks about pulling away, he doesn’t. He stays in close, their foreheads touching, hands resting warm and solid against his neck, breaths mingling. “And I know what love means to you, Edward. I watched you prove that nothing means more to you. Do you think it means any less to me? That I would even be here if it wasn’t because of love?”

He stops and closes his eyes again as if physically pained. “I thought–” He stops again, takes a deep breath then goes on without opening his eyes. “I thought about what this would cost me. I thought about it. Do you think it was easy to see Maes so content in what he had and not want that? But I decided after the War. I gave up family, a wife, children, ease and comfort to pursue my goal. And maybe I didn’t want to see how long it would take for it to get sour; for it to get to be an obligation instead of a joy.

“But Ed, this–” He lifts a hand from Ed’s neck to sweep it toward the office. “This will take the best years of my life, and then, when I’m old and weak, it’ll let me go and someone else will step in. Someone who might not have the same ideals that I do, who might not care so much that it hurts some times. Someone that won’t use that pain to make things better.

“And I won’t be able to stop it. Ten years, twenty years, maybe forty…” His eyelids clench as if speaking his hopes aloud might make them invalid. “A…”

“A golden age,” Ed says because he knows that’s what Roy is thinking, what he’s dreaming and if it had been anyone else, he would have laughed and mocked but Roy has worked so hard for so long that it seems the least the world could do to grant him this one desperate hope.

“I dream sometimes,” Roy whispers.

“You do more than that,” Ed says because Roy’s doing what he asked and he doesn’t know what to do about it now.

“Edward, I’m drowning and living and fighting and hoping so much every single day that I’m not sure where who I am and what I want to be stops and the other begins. But sometimes… sometimes I want to fool myself that I can have something like this. Sometimes I want to have more than this office and this uniform and these dreams and these fears.”

Ed tilts his head back and presses his lips to Roy’s brow. “I love you,” he says again, a bit desperately.

Roy leans into the touch as if it’s a ray of sunlight and he’s been in the dark for so, _so_ _long_ –

“Are you sure you still want my everything, Edward?”

“Yes,” a plea, a promise, a seal.

Roy opens his eyes and smiles at him and this time it’s not a battle; it’s not fire and anger; it’s not the end.

“Then, you should know that I love you.”

They should kiss but this feels more intimate and Ed doesn’t ever want to move, he wants to exist in this moment for as long as he lives–

Roy pulls him close, his arms going around his back, his chin settling on the top of Ed’s head, holding him as if he wants to meld him into his skin and Ed leans into him, holding him just as tightly.

“Sometimes,” Roy whispers, his fingers carding through Ed’s hair, “I dream.”


End file.
